Black Channel---a hoary joke that left
Barris stone-faced. But he does express
pride in the network's deep bench of
creators of color. According to Barris,
John Ridley, the creator of the drama
"American Crime," encouraged him to
secure a long-term deal with ABC and
Shonda Rhimes advised him on social-
media strategies, including getting his
cast on Twitter. Television is the van-
guard medium now, Barris believes---
he's a binge viewer who is o ended "on
a primal level" by TV writers who don't
watch TV. But, regardless of the me-
dium, he is most attracted to art that
is "proprietary," a word that Barris uses
to describe not only early Spike Lee
but also ambitious TV, from Jill Solo-
way's "Transparent" to Damon Linde-
lof 's "The Leftovers," from "Broad City"
to "Mr. Robot." What rankles him is
talent wasted: the funniest, meanest
joke in "Hope" is Ruby's claim that
the guy Tasered by the cops deserved
it, because he'd been selling copies of
Lee's "Chi-Raq."
Rhimes watches "black-ish" with
her tween daughter. She ticked o her
favorite bits: the N-word episode; the
"white Greek chorus" of Dre's o ce;
the grandparents who are "not these
saintly black parents---they're divorced
and hate each other's guts." She de-
scribed Barris as "very kind," "very
quick-witted," and "kind of shy."When
Rhimes, who can be shy herself, first
met Barris and Larry Wilmore, they
disarmed her with what Wilmore de-
scribes as an imitation of a racist Mickey
Mouse, squeaking in horror at the idea
of a Disney show called "black-ish."
She told them to keep in touch, and,
unlike many creators she'd o ered to
help, they followed up.
Solidarity, she said, was the only
way to cope with the fragility of being
a Hollywood pioneer. "There's no way
to achieve any kind of voice if you're
the only," Rhimes said. "That's how
women become the bitch and how peo-
ple of color become 'weird.' Inclusion
means more than 'eight white guys and
a person of color.' "
O night in L.A., I joined
Barris at the Soho House in West
Hollywood. He was having a dinner
meeting with Bashir Salahuddin and
Diallo Riddle, the comedy team that
created "Slow Jam the News" for Jimmy
Fallon. Like Barris's diversity hire, Dam
Sonoiki, whom they knew, they had
gone to Harvard. African-American
men on the verge of forty, they looked
handsome in thick-cable sweaters. Bar-
ris slouched in ripped jeans and a sweat-
shirt---an outfit I'd seen him wear on
the red carpet. His sneakers were al-
ways impeccable: growing up, he'd saved
his money for fancy ones, which he
cleaned with a toothbrush. He now
had a closet devoted to his collection.
Running down his forearms were two
tattoos: the word "Choices" on the right,
"Decisions" on the left. His mother had
told him that black people made too
many decisions---selecting from so-
cially constrained options---and not
enough choices.
Riddle told me that he and Sala-
huddin had met Barris once before:
"He gave us some advice, but we didn't
take it." He wouldn't clarify, so Bar-
ris filled me in: he told them that they
should seek out an amenable "white
guy" to work with. It would build a
bridge to top executives, who were
almost universally white. "That guy
can be an ally," Barris explained. "A
translator."
Salahuddin and Riddle were feel-
ing burned: they'd spent four years de-
veloping a show called "Brothers in
Atlanta" for HBO, which ultimately
rejected it. They were looking for a
"rabbi," they said, someone who knew
about network TV. What you wanted,
they all agreed, was a crew, a squad---
like-minded friends who could jump
in to "punch up the funny." Barris spoke
longingly about the comedic collective
that Judd Apatow had built, and said
that he want to create something like
it---"a contemporary, racially eclectic,
gender-eclectic, experience-eclectic
salon." He listed people with whom
he'd like to collaborate, including Lena
Waithe, who plays the laconic black
lesbian on "Master of None." Isolation,
Barris suggested, might have been the
problem for the comedian Dave Chap-
pelle: when his Comedy Central show
fell apart, he had no community to
gather around him.
We ate pomegranate ice cream, and
the conversation, as it often does in L.A.,
veered into black-ops financial territory,
such as the advantages and disadvan-
tages of a several-year network pickup.
Salahuddin was newly engaged, and they
talked about marriage. Barris told them
about a turning point in his life, when
he was in his late twenties, clubbing.
One evening, he came home drunk from
Xenii, a members-only club, and found
"If Trump becomes President, I don't care how high
he builds that wall---I'm going over it."